Autism: Facilitating friendship–or more–with the opposite sex

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I’ve grown tired of telling my son Matthew, who is 23 and has autism, that he’ll meet a nice girl someday. I’ve decided to help him, and started by asking myself three questions:

1) What is the biggest obstacle that prevents Matthew from meeting girls?

2)What is the best way to help him with his socially awkward behavior so that he doesn’t scare girls away?

3)Once he meets a girl who agrees to hang out with him, how do I provide supervision?

Today, I’ll address step one.

The challenge?

Matthew’s program at Camphill California is comprised mostly of men. The few women that he knows there are either neurotypical (what Matthew refers to as “regular”) or older/sister types.

My strategy:

I met with another parent from Camphill who has a son a little older than Matthew who grew up in the Santa Cruz area. He has Down Syndrome and is more socially savvy than Matthew (by quite a bit), but he has been involved in Special Olympics, and similar social activity groups all of his life. I asked Matthew which groups he was interested in joining and he was eager to sign up for “all of the groups where he could meet nice friends, especially girls.”

My worry:

That Matthew will come on to strong and scare perspective friends away.

That is step two. I have a plan. To be continued.

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Have you helped facilitate friendships for your kids, “regular” or not so regular?